Request By:
Mr. Sam Santell
Community Planner
FIVCO Area Development District
P.O. Box 636
Catlettsburg, Kentucky 41129
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of April 25 in which you raise a number of questions concerning the transcript of the record following a public hearing with respect to a proposed zoning amendment. Your questions are as follows:
1. Does the transcript of the testimony mean a word for word verbatim record as found in a court of law?
2. Do minutes, not word for word record of the hearing, suffice a transcript of the hearing?
3. Could a tape recording of the hearing, along with minutes of the hearing suffice a transcript?
Chapter 100 KRS does not detail the hearing procedure required in connection with a proposed zoning change. A hearing must of course be held under the terms of KRS 100.211 and 100.213 and the courts have consistently declared that such a hearing must be of a trial-type nature and a transcript of the evidence made. It is noted, however, in the case of City of Louisville v. McDonald, 270 S.W.2d 173 (1971), that:
". . . The record made before the commission must adequately reflect the elements necessary for judicial review to determine whether the ultimate action was arbitrary. . . ." (Emphasis added.)
The phrase "adequately reflect" as used in the above quote would apparently exclude the necessity of a verbatim transcript of all the testimony given at the hearing. In this respect we also refer you to 2 Am. Jur., Administrative Law, § 722, from which we quote the following:
". . . While it is better practice for an appealing party to file in court a verbatim record of testimony taken before the agency, where the statute providing for the appeal does not require such record it was held that there was no error in permitting the filing of a transcript certified to by the commission as constituting the substance of the testimony heard by it 'to the best of our recollection.' . . ."
It would thus appear that the transcript need only reflect the essential substance of the testimony that adequately reflects the elements necessary for judicial review.
As to the utilization of a tape recording machine at the hearing, such use is quite common so that the transcriber will have, word for word, the evidence of what transpired at the hearing, however, we do not believe that the tape recording itself could be made a part of the transcript [not transcribed] except possibly as supporting evidence.